This book ​discusses the art and science of economic decision making. It combines logical thinking with analytics, economics, and finance to draw decision insights for the upstream petroleum projects. The book offers useful analysis skills for practitioners in industry, including analysts, engineers, and managers. In addition, advanced undergraduate and graduate students in petroleum engineering, applied petroleum geoscience, industrial engineering, and energy business would benefit from the discussions in this book.

This is a textbook for engineering and management/business undergraduates and postgraduate students and a reference for practicing engineers or managers who are familiar with their projects but less familiar with financial/economic analysis methods. The book is divided into two parts. Part 1 covers all the basic concepts and theories and provides the readers with a good understanding of the financial and economic analysis on the feasibility of projects. Plenty of examples are used to illustrate the theories, arguments and calculations. Part 2 consists of case studies on both financial and economic feasibility studies. Readers should be able to conduct their own financial and economic analyses by following the procedures and methodo-logy of the examples given.In this new edition, the chapters have been revised and expanded with the latest theories and data added, especially the most up-dated information on the development of the theories of internal rate of return and net present worth.

The second edition of Alternative Energy: Political, Economic, and Social Feasibility builds on the first edition, but with significant updates on dramatic changes within the renewable energy sector over the last decade. Christopher Simon discusses the basic technical aspects of major renewable energy systems and technological developments and considers the impact of politics on energy policy using contemporary theories of public policy—such as, Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF), Punctuated Equilibrium (PE), Narrative Policy Framework, and Policy Diffusion—as well as discussing the evolution of the social feasibility of renewable energy. The author expands his discussion of alternative energy solutions to consider nuclear power developments and feasibility in the post-Fukushima policy environment. International commitment to renewable energy is also addressed.

This book presents a set of tools that will aid in deciding whether a project should go ahead, be improved, or abandoned altogether by pinpointing its vulnerabilities. It offers a review of project feasibility analysis, and more critically, psychodynamic aspects that are often neglected, including how stakeholders interact. It provides a complement to the common techniques used for analyzing technical, financial, and marketing feasibility. The goal is to identify "hidden truths" and eliminate those gray areas that jeopardize the success of a given project. The focus is on uncovering points of vulnerabilities in four key aspects of a project: People, Power, Processes, and Plan.